I still like to write letters and send them in the mail. Mostly I like to GET letters, so I have to write them to receive them. So, although the habit of letter writing may be dwindling, it's not dead yet!

Oh, well, yes...in that sense. I have often thought I might try the next life as a cute girl myself. Women have far better choices in clothing than men these days, and they also often have a better singing range, I think.

Well, Little Hawk, no need to sit around and stew in jealousy. You are at liberty to wear all the foxy women's clothing you like, and as for your singing range, Rapaire has the perfect answer somewhere in his blades collection.

Jeeze, here I try to encourage you to fulfill your dreams instead of putting them off, and you just cuss at me!!! Fine, then. See if I try to encourage you anymore!! Even Rapaire would be put off helping an ingrate!!

And the problem with extensive upper body surgery is what? It's been and is being done every day. Shame McBride, for instance, has applied for a "gender-bending" operation which will do for him what it did for Winona; he put on his application that he "always felt a woman in a man's body" and would feel "sikolojikly" better if he were changed.

You may have to break the news to him, LH, in case he doesn't know already. If so, I urge you to do it gently, like the character in one of Charles Dickens' books: "Your mother is sick, your mother is dying, your mother is dead."

Wait until he's standing with some friends. Let's say the group is made up of Bob, Tom, Jim, and Shame. You say, "Hey, any of you guys have living mothers? No, no, not you Shame." Or you can ask him, "Hey, how does it feel when your mother's dead?" Be subtle, because you wouldn't want to hurt whatever passes for his feelings, assuming he has any -- I've heard rumours that when his biology class pithed a frog they missed and got you-know-who.

Your whole flippin' existence is an imaginary projection, Amos. And no one else could possibly have come up with it except for you, so I understand why you cleave to it so faithfully. ;-)

Ask yourself sometime what you would DO if you didn't have people like me and Rapaire to joust with here, and if you didn't have this silly thread to expound on daily. You know what I think? I think you'd be sitting, sweaty and disheveled in some sweltering cabana in the Caribbean, rolling contraband cigars, and surrounded by your long-suffering wife and about 18 brown-skinned progeny. Your view of the world would be summed up in one simple set of phrases: "Hijo de puta! Es muy caliente hoy. Da me otra serveza, mujer!"

All of which is true, except that you have overlooked that Khandu is MY creation and without me there is nothing at all, for I created everything. I had special reasons for creating Amos; he is destined for a Special Purpose.

While I agree with the Special Purpose part, I think it is MOST presumptuous of an identity like "Rapaire", only lately coughed out upon the carpet of Mudcat Life by a one-time library director, to be given such arrogant lines to assert.

IF prime numbers were not more rare, they would be well done, yes? And though to "catch" a prime is indeed well done, prime numbers are better off more rare. They are more tender that way, and more special.

They do become less frequent as numbers become larger. I think it's because large size can reduce reproductive efficiency.

They taught us that in Ecology 101.

r possibly they become more rare as they grow larger because of population pressure.

The man, presenting a demand note and flashing a revolver, robbed the Bank of America branch in Santee. A reward of $16,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest in the string of robberies that began last summer.

The FBI gave the robber his nickname because he is believed to be between 60 and 70 years old. Sometimes he has a plastic oxygen tube leading from his nose.

Look, if you are that hard up for money, let's talk. Maybe we could find you some part time work bagging for Henry's. But let me know the next time you plan to be in town. I'd hate to miss you, and there's a 16K reward for information.

On each floor? We had one on the kitchen wall which my father refused to buy for $5 when Ma Bell was broken up. Yup - still paid the monthly rental fee for years and years. The phone was installed in 1952; the house was sold in 1998. That phone was worth more than the house but Dad left it on the wall insisting that the phone company (he hated the phone company) had to send someone to get it. They never did.

I remeber the first time we were traveling and encountered phones that had to be dialed...up until that time the only phones I knew had live operators. IN fact, several of the operators were relatives so we didn't even have to know numbers.

There was a dial telephone at the nurse's office in the elementary school. My friend who was an aide walked by and saw a little boy sitting inside just melting with tears. She walked in and the poor little sick boy was sobbing because he had to call his mother and he didn't know how to work the telephone. He had absolutely no idea that he had to stick his finger in at a number and pull the dial around until it stopped.

That is a sad picture, Ms Eiseley. I guess, of course, it is the sign of changing times, but I still had to do a double-take. Not know how to work a rotary phone? Wow... I might have felt the same way confronted, at that age, with a Marconi telegraph key, I suppose. And, I guess, I would have melted with tears too, in that situation. But not now--no, sir!! I would just ask someone.